The Great Sword is one of the seven weapon types available in Monster Hunter Outlanders at launch, and one of the first to receive a dedicated official overview. It is the game's heavy charge weapon: damage scales with how long an attack has been charged, and the whole kit is built around holding a charge for as long as the fight allows.
Charge Level
Official material states plainly that the Great Sword delivers massive power based on charge level. Charging is therefore the weapon's core resource rather than an optional flourish, and the tension in using it is the gap between how long a charge takes and how long a monster leaves an opening.
Playing Around the Slowness
The weapon is described as slow, and the official framing is that a player adapts using evasion, guarding, and hit-and-run tactics rather than trying to out-speed the target. All three are named explicitly, so the Great Sword here is a weapon that can block as well as dodge.
Perfect Evade
The most distinctive confirmed mechanic is that Perfect Evades let the player maintain a charge without sheathing the weapon. In practice this removes the usual penalty for having to move during a charge: a well-timed dodge does not cost the work already put into the swing. This is a Great Sword specific expression of the Perfect Evade system, which appears on several weapons with different payoffs.
Skill Switching
The second confirmed mechanic is that skills can be switched while charging, which chains follow-up attacks. Combined with the mobile control scheme, where combo moves execute from a single button press, this makes charging an active state rather than a pause: a player choosing what the charge will become is doing the moment-to-moment work that an input string would do elsewhere.
Confirmed Mechanics
Mechanic | Confirmed behaviour |
|---|---|
Charge level | Attack power scales with charge level |
Movement speed | Slow, offset by evasion, guarding and hit-and-run play |
Perfect Evade | Maintains the charge without sheathing the weapon |
Skill switching | Can be done while charging, chaining follow-up attacks |
Guarding | Explicitly available as one of the weapon's options |
The Great Sword Adventurer
Pyro is the revealed Adventurer who carries the Great Sword, classed as Assault. His stated identity is turning the pain of battle into overwhelming power: the attacks he endures fuel his moves, which then land as earth-shattering blows with high burst damage. That pairs a defensive resource with the weapon's already commitment-heavy rhythm.
Not Yet Confirmed
How many charge levels exist, and the damage multiplier at each.
The names of individual Great Sword attacks and skills.
Whether a Perfect Guard exists on this weapon, as it does on the Heavy Bowgun.
Whether the weapon has a true charged slash equivalent or a different top-end attack.
Sharpness, raw values, elemental variants and upgrade paths.
Whether other Adventurers will carry the Great Sword.